


Double Exposure

by Brennah_K



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3478067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warning: One of those “Characters Reading the Story” Stories, that will turn AU from OOTP.</p><p>When Professor Umbridge's detentions fail to have the desired effect on the fractious Potter, Delores Umbridge hits on an exquisitely simple plan to expose the boy for the liar and trouble maker that he is. With the Minister's full backing- what could go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a half formed idea, once upon a time, that I'm putting up for adoption if anyone's interested. I'll be happy to share my plot notes if anyone should want them. It was to have ended with a moderately happy ending.

“Hem, Hem. Mister Potter, I am sure you will not be surprised by this, as you seem to be endeavoring to provoke both myself and your fellow classmates, but once again, you have earned a 'Detention'. As my previous attempts to curb your untoward and unseemly behavior seem to be having too little effect on the depths of your fractious nature it seems other methods are needed. Please report to the Great Hall, every night this week beginning directly after classes and continuing as long as it will take to correct your malicious conduct.”

Harry sighed harshly, but held his retort when Hermione grabbed his arm and shook her head. 

“No!” She hissed, sharply.

He glanced at her curiously, cocking his head at her angry expression, before glancing back at 'Professor' Umbridge's overly smug expression. 

This couldn't be good, but he was certain that his detention would likely draw a large audience, probably even some of the professors meaning that he'd probably get a break from her bleeding vampire quill! 

She probably had something humiliating in mind to make up for for the lack of pain, but he was pretty sure that by this point he was almost immune to embarrassment. Between fourteen years with the Dursleys, the fickle attention of his schoolmates, Snape's never-ending ridicule, Rita Skeeter's nasty articles, occlumency lessons, and Umbridge's persecution - he really couldn't think of anything that was likely to even make him blush anymore.

Still, the witch's smug smile was worrying.

ブレンキン

As Harry'd expected, the Hogwart's gossip mill had defied the speed of light (and magic) and the Great Hall was nearly full when he arrived. Even before he reached the entrance, the excited whispers that he had been able to hear even out in the corridor suddenly dropped off, cued a high pitched stage whisper, "He's Here."

The sudden intense scrutiny from everyone in the hall forcefully drug his memory back to the moment his name had appeared from the Triwizard Tournament Cup, but Harry fought to stay in the present. The last thing that he needed was to get caught up in those memories.

ブレンキン

"Come, come, Mr. Potter, come forward. Come forward. You have a seat of honor right here at the front." Delores announced gleefully. Waving her hand to a staff chair that had been repositioned to provide the student body the best view of Potter's face, in anticipation of his soon to be exposure.

Wearing a petulant sulk, Potter slouched over to the chair, throwing her a stubborn grimace before he dropped into it.

"I thought this was supposed to be a detention," he pouted.

"Oh, it will be exactly that, as you will be detained _petrificus immobilus-_ while we consider the lies you have been telling in a clearer light."

Smiling as his eyes widened in shock when he felt his limbs lock and freeze in place, Delores clapped, summoning the minister's understudy, Percival Weasley forward with a bright smile as she saw the large flask of exsanguous scribious potion he had brought with him. That amount, roughly half a mead barrel, should do very nicely, quite nicely, indeed. 

Her initial intention had been simply to expose the boy's attention seeking lies, for the falsehoods they were, but the sight of the wonderfully large flask brought a new thought to mind. 

From the very first, as far as she could see from his school records, Potter - despite his indubitable talent and strength as a wizard, had been at best a slipshod student and more often a troublesome rule-breaking layabout - a trait which the, hopefully, soon-to-be-ousted headmaster had not only tolerated but encouraged, awarding the brat points for his misbehavior. 

Little wonder, to her mind, how he turned out to be such a spoiled, stubborn, self-important nuisance that he had.

No matter though, Delores had dealt with quite a few egotistical, self-important, headstrong young wizards at the ministry, who had been foolish to underestimate her ambition and dedication to her goals. More than once, all it had taken to put them in their places had been a good healthy serving of public embarrassment, and she was certain that Potter had been more than naughty enough to have a few embarrassing tales to sting his ego.

"Now, I do realize that Hogwarts has been _required_ to host a number of underprivileged students, muggleborn, and the like who were deprived by circumstance of a proper wizarding upbringing. For their benefit, I will explain: while I realize that in the muggle world certain unsavory practices are necessary to survival, in the wizarding world lying is considered wrong... and is to be soundly discouraged. In most cases, if fabrications are suspected, the use of veritaserum can be prescribed to establish the truth."

Ignoring the rise of irritable murmuring, though she did do quick sweep of her gaze to see whose comments were loudest (the Granger girl, no surprise there), Delores schooled her face into the most regretfully sympathetic expression that she could muster, and gave Potter a weakly encouraging smile - nuisance those he was- then continued:

"Sadly, on some rare occasions, where _concerns exist_ ' she said as if the subject must be tread delicately, "for someone's stability... Concerns that that perhaps more in depth questioning might destabilize him further... the exsanguous scribious potion enables inquisitors to create a document that relates in unimpeachable detail the true actions, statements, thoughts, and circumstances of the person in question. Over the past weeks' detentions, Mr. Potter has participated in this process, imbuing the parchments to be used with the necessary oaths to give a detailed and accurate account of his dubious behavior."

ブレンキン

"... Exsanguous scribious potion..." the words were barely out of the wretched toad's mouth when they sent a violent shiver down Severus Snape's spine, breaking a silently muttered oath from his lips as they did.

Well familiar with the cursed potion, Severus had concocted a counteragent for the order during the first war, and had diligently taken the counter daily to prevent the dark lord, Lucius, or another of the dark lord's former minions from scoring a lucky cutting hex and summoning enough blood to expose his treachery. As she continued to explain the cursed potion, Severus found himself puzzling over her other comments.

The witch's comments had been rather more subtle than he would have normally given her credit for, with Potter silenced, the muggleborns distracted by the insulting nature of her explanation, and an unsupported claim that Potter had been cooperating with a process used solely in cases where an individual's mental defect was a foregone conclusion, Umbridge had impeached the boy's credibility in the minds of the pureblood and wizard-raised students (who - blinded by Potter's notoriety - would would be less prone to consider Potter's ignorance as they doomed him for his participation in a ritual that they would have known not to submit to).

How she had manipulated the boy into cooperating was another matter of curiosity entirely one equally inexplicable. 

Having been subjected to Potter's squalid mind numerous times, in a futile effort to train the boy in occlumency, Severus was well aware that Potter harbored not even the slightest degree of respect for the witch, or any emotion kinder than disdain and loathing. The thought of Potter assisting the woman at all, when he regularly, fiercely and defiantly rebelled against the woman's blatant strictures nigh smacked of the imperious or some equivalent coercion was so very nearly incredible that Severus was tempted to check the boy for compulsion spells. Had the Headmaster and Moody not repeatedly commented on the boy’s ability to resist the imperius, Severus would have already cast a spell he’d devised years ago to counter most compulsion spells. 

Scowling at the boy as he considered the matter, Severus was quickly entrenched in speculation regarding her manipulations.

ブレンキン

Unrolling the parchments she’d just referred to, Delores beckoned to Weasley and pulled barrel from his hands and unceremoniously upended it, pouring the entire contents into the waiting parchments and thrusting it back into his hands when the parchments had absorbed the entirety.

If it had not been beneath her dignity, she would have been inclined to clap with her excitement. The potion took immediate effect, and she watched eagerly as the blood on the parchment reshaped into new words that she immediately read out loud. 

**"The Boy Who Lived."**

**"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.”**

Much to her displeasure, Delores noticed that the following paragraphs focused heavily on Potter’s muggles, but there was nothing to be done for it. The nature of the potion would not allow additional details to appear until the first were transcribed and read. Still, judging by Potter’s widening eyes and the growing flush on his cheeks, she had no doubt that she was going to be quickly reaching the matters he would prefer to hide.

**“Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

**The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as un-Dursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.”**

Professor Umbridge had been pushing through the reading as quickly as possible, but slowed at the last line, almost giggling at the phrase and the discontented murmur that rose in response. It appeared that even the muggles had recognized that the boy was a bad seed. To her disappointment the parchment did not continue in that vein, but it did look promising and Potter’s eyes were resolutely staring out over the heads of his classmates as he tried to avoid their gazes. 

**“When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair. None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window. At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls."Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive. It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.”**

Tutting dismissively, Delores spared a pitying glance around the room, being certain to focus on the muggleborns in the audience as if they shared the family’s ignorance. As she was returning her eyes to the parchment, though, she noticed one of the professors, Dumbledore’s favored Deputy Headmistress, shifting uncomfortably and smiled as she remembered that the woman was a registered animagus... a cat animagus, to be exact. How perfect. 

“Hem, hem,” she cleared her throat delicately before turning to the elderly witch, “Professor McGonagall, would you be so kind as to continue the reading in my place? My throat has quite dried out with the material.”

Ignoring the elderly witch’s clear discomfort, Deloris held the scrolls out insistently until it would defy good form and only seem the more suspicious if the Deputy Headmistress refused to take up the task.

“Of course,” Professor McGonagall answered, her tone pleasantly defensive. 

When Delores came to the idea of discrediting Potter, she had never anticipated drawing the intractable Professor into her trap. The witches displeasure rolled off her in waves, but unable to refuse she took up the reading.

ブレンキン

**  
**

**“Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day. But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdoes standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together.”**

**Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt —these people were obviously collecting for something… yes, that would be it. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime.**

Minerva McGonagall quickly scrolled her gaze over the scroll trying to read ahead as she went hoping substitute pronouns into the narrative where she and the headmaster became involved instead of revealing their identities and to drop any other sensitive details that might come out beyond Harry’s address. 

**Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more.  
He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.**

As she read the paragraph detailing Mr. Dursley’s common behavior, though, Minerva could not refrain from scowling in the Headmaster’s direction. Even so many years later, she hadn’t quite reconciled his refusal to take her opinion of the family into consideration.  
 **  
It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

**"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard —"**

**" — yes, their son, Harry —"**

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead.**

**Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it. He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone,and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking… no, he was being stupid.**

**Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her — if he'd had a sister like that…**

ブレンキン

Sitting straighter at the mention of his former friend, Severus found himself glaring at the scrolls for their reminder Petunia’s deplorable attitude toward her sister. How the two could have been related in any ways was nearly a mystery to him. Were it not for Lily’s keen temper, vicious competitive streak, and her inability to forgive slights, he might have truly considered the muggle superstition of good and bad twins. While he had truly loved her as a friend and more (though she never shared the depth of affection), Severus had never been blind to her faults. Lily, for all that he remained devoted to her memory, had not been perfect. Never so bad as her sister, but not perfect.

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er — Petunia, dear — you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"**

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

**"Well that's not nice." Said a first year Hufflepuff.**

**"No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

 

As Minerva continued reading, Severus felt a growing disquiet caused by the scroll’s description of their attitude. As the description of their continued, he found it more and more difficult to square the Dursley’s obvious disdain for Lily with their supposed treatment of her son, whom - if Order reports were true - had been treated as a virtual prince and spoiled outrageously. When Minerva came to a particularly telling comment...

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

Severus turned his gaze to Potter and froze in surprise. The child was sitting rigidly - even for the petrificous spell-, his eyes clenched tightly shut, and his face aflame with obvious humiliation. 

**His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind… He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn't affect them…**

**How very wrong he was.**

Continuing to watch the child for reaction as the entire great hall were made privy to most intimate details of the moments following his parents deaths, which he knew that Potter was only just then hearing himself, Severus didn’t miss the boy’s flinch when the narrative reached Minerva’s mention of the general celebrations that had followed Voldemort’s fall (even among some of the Dark Lord’s less ardent supporters). Watching the child pale as the conversation continued, with Dumbledore actually agreeing that they’d had much to be grateful for, Severus found himself reluctantly impressed with Umbridge’s sadistic ingenuity in devising a bitter punishment for the child that Headmaster Dumbledore could not so easily thwart. 

Severus wasn’t alone in his disquiet, however, and throughout the Great Hall, he could hear the soft rustling of clothing and in many cases, soft-sympathetic sounding gasps as they reached the Headmaster’s confirmation of the Potter’s deaths.

Minerva’s voice broke as she continued and she had to stop to pull a lace handkerchief from her sleeve to dab at her eyes beneath her spectacles. For his part, Dumbledore gave a great sniff, seeming more affected than Severus suspected he truly was. If anything, the Headmaster’s steady gaze on Potter seemed to sharpen as the witch reached the point in the narrative where Dumbledore had explained his plans for the boy. 

**"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."**

**"You don't mean – you can't mean the people who live here?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore — you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son — I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"**

**"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

**"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall.**

**"Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous — a legend — I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future — there will be books written about Harry — every child in our world will know his name!"**

**"Exactly." said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can you see how much**

Almost shuddering at the thought of how much worse the boy might have been if he’d been raised with not only the benefits of fame but the wealth and sense of entitlement that he would have no doubt flaunted as the Potter’s sole heir, Severus couldn’t immediately dispute the Headmaster’s argument, at least until the recitation reached Dumbledore’s reaction to the child’s scar, which had even’s Potter’s eyes flashing open in shock:

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."**

**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground.”**

The Headmaster’s refusal to see to Potter’s scar was baffling and counter to everything that Severus knew and understood about curse scars. The child should have been treated, immediately to leach out any residual dark magic remaining in the wound. It wasn’t just neglectful to dismiss treatment, but cruel and dangerous as the lingering Dark Magic could infect the cursed person’s inherent magic, killing the subject if they were already weak, and potentially corrupting the subject if left unchecked. If the scar had been properly leached that night, the wound would have healed naturally without scarring, as would any spell that did not actually damage or disrupt the victim’s physical integrity (including the avada kedavra and other unforgivables which affected victim’s magical channels instead of physical channels.)

The only safe way to have left Potter with the scar would have been to…

Filius Flitwick reached the same conclusion as Severus, but a moment earlier, accusing the Headmaster in a sharp aside: “You bound his magic!”

The Headmaster tried to forestall further comment, raising his hand to shush the Ravenclaw professor, who had just caught Umbridge’s delighted attention, but at that moment, Minerva had just finished the description of how the Headmaster had left Potter on the doorstep, without any mention of warming charms, or other protections placed over the house before the three departed with Dumbledore commenting: **"Well, that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

Any hope that the Headmaster might have had of silencing the man died with that sentence as the normally staid half-Goblin jumped to stand in his seat - demanding harshly, “Binding his magic and leaving him for the Dursley’s to find in the morning? What were you thinking Albus? The winter of Eighty-One was one of the coldest, stormiest winters on record since 1890, and you left him without even a warming charm or even his own magic to protect him? Did you want the child to die of exposure?”

Stunned by the unexpected attack, the Headmaster’s denial, “No, No, of course not.” came too slow for Potter, who broke from the hold of the petrificus spell with a sound that could only be described as a agonized sob - then ran from the hall. 

 

No one remaining in the room was listening when Delores smugly picked up the scroll that the older witch had dropped at the half-blood’s accusation and started to read:  
 **  
A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley… He couldn't know that at that very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter — the boy who lived!"**

Reaching the end of only the first chapter, Delores let the scroll snap shut - thrilled with the results of the reading. Not only was the Potter boy clearly humiliated and cowed, Delores had been given ample evidence to demonstrate the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress terrible dereliction of duty in regards to the Potter boy. Judging by the shocked and aghast faces of even his own staff, much less the students, Dumbledore’s esteemed status had suffered greatly from the revelation. All from the first chapter.

She almost salivated at the thought of what else might be found within the scrolls, but -despite how she had obtained Potter’s blood- use of the exsanguous scribious potion and ritual was very strictly adhered to and she stood a very good chance of losing the chance of pursuing anything that might be revealed if the reading were to continue without Potter present.


	2. To the Letter

Staring down at the tiny spatters of ink dripping onto the parchment - as he tried to decide how to phrase his missive to his father- Draco's thoughts returned to that evening's readings of Harry Potter's life courtesy of the resumed Exsanguinous Scribus ritual initiated by the so-called High Inquisitor, Professor Umbridge.

He had no doubt that the Headmaster had ordered Hogwarts elves to monitor and block any mail reporting the details students might reveal... not that Draco's missive would contain any such blatant revelations even if there had been no reason to believe their owls might be intercepted. 

No, Draco had little doubt that his father would not believe any of the details Draco had learned unless he heard them with his own ears. Nor why should he? Why should anyone believe that the famed 'Boy who Lived' had grown up a virtual house elf in his relative home; no worse, most house-elves were regularly fed multiple meals a day, given clean sleeping quarters and linens, and even minimal gifts on Boxing Day. It was unthinkable, ludicrous, and if the ritual could be trusted - as it had for decades - utterly true.

What disturbed Draco more, though, had been a particular phrase Percy Weasley had read that had been echoing in his thoughts since hearing it:

  


> ****
> 
> **"The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too..."**

  
From Draco's earliest memories, his parents had surrounded him with evidence of their desire to celebrate his presence in their lives. From the ink-stained blotter marking his first attempts to use a quill that his father had shrunk to use as a desk ornament to each of the stasis encased flowers he'd picked for his mother throughout his childhood, Draco had grown up surrounded by visible reminders that his parents valued his presence and actions down to the smallest detail. The prospect that of what it must have been like for Potter to grow up in a house devoid of any sign of his existence, without personal possessions, forced to wear the cast-offs as the entirety of Hogwarts had learned him to have done - had been sobering to Draco. He truthfully couldn't imagine it, or reconcile it with the Potter he'd thought he had known; although now partially informed of Potter's background, he could see the physical effects his home life had left on his rival as the potion attested to even noting- 

  


> ****
> 
> **Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose."**

****

  


But, now, Draco couldn't help but wonder how he hadn't seen it before. He had been quick enough to note others in his year from other houses, including his own, and mark them off limits for the ridicule of he and his clutch of friends... even the mudbloods - having decided that harassing someone who shared the misfortunes of his godfather's childhood, was beneath him. Yet, he had gleefully harangued Potter at every opportunity - feeling righteously vengeful for Potter's refusal to take his hand on the train ride. Even mocking him over the scar that Draco had known to represented his parent's deaths -even it seemed before H- Potter had learned of it. Looking back, Draco wondered how it must have felt for Potter to learn the truth behind the only thing - according to the scroll- that Potter had once liked about himself:

  


> ****The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning."  
>  ** **

  


Noticing that the small spatters of ink had finally dried, Draco carefully curled the serif of the 'F' in the title 'Father' so that it passed the upper edge of three dots - indicating that he thought the importance high for father's to visit Hogwarts soon. If he had felt it only mildly interesting or less importance, the top of the 'F' would have crossed at a lower station or entirely underneath the dots. If he wasn't certain of the location or whether they should meet personally, the curl of the serif would not have reached the third dot or alternately wrapped around it without touching to suggest instead a meeting in Hogsmeade or nearby wizarding villages depending on how many times the loop serif looped around the ink dot and the direction it was pointing at the end. With the request finished, Draco went on to write a mildly gloating letter that avoided any noting - at least visibly any information that the elves under Dumbleore's orders would deem worthy of blocking.

  


> _"Dear Father," his letter began, "I am certain you will have heard that Professor Umbridge has appointed me to the Inquisitorial Squad - with integral responsibilities that exceed even the prefect's duty, which Uncle Severus saw fit to recommend me for. This- I am certain- will allow me to be well placed to be named Head Boy during Seventh year._
> 
> _Please inform Mother that I fully see the wisdom of her words in regard to avoiding drawing Professor Umbridge's wrath... a lesson which even now Potter is learning as the recipient of a very public dressing down. While I can not say that I haven't eagerly anticipated the conceited Gryffindor getting his due, the humiliation of a public spectacle has been quite distasteful, and I will be quite content to see its finish._
> 
> _On other topics, has Mother decided on the themes and color scheme for this year's yuletide festivities? I have been considering the gifts which I would like to bestow and to whom this year and should prefer to collect pre-order charmed wrapping papers to match both the gifts and personalities. If she has not, do you think she might consider a primary background of platinum, bismuth, and gold? The transitive properties, gold tones of bismuth crystals, and silver tones in Bismuth's elemental state - would make a fantastic backdrop for any of the color schemes and jewelry she might like to choose._
> 
> _Sadly, I must end this letter too briefly as it is nearly time for my patrol and I wish to complete today's homework before patrol._
> 
> _With my deepest wishes, your son, Draco._

  


After scanning over the letter a third time, Draco finally decided that he had been sufficiently cautious in his tone and comments as not avoid suspicion and having his letters to his father confiscated, folded it up and tied it neatly before slipping it into his robe pocket. Although he had been entirely honest, that his homework was not completed before the evening patrol of the Inquisitorial squad, Draco elected to go to the owlery instead hoping that Hermes would be there and ready to take his letter immediately. He had little belief in his ability to concentrate sought a distraction from thinking about sobering passage that the evening's reading had ended on:

  


> ****
> 
> **Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**
> 
> **He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burn- ing pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course, he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**
> 
> **When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.**


End file.
